Saturday 9.6.14 Part B: Sense &For a month now, every time I walk through or around my side yard, I catch the whiff of a certain scent in the air. At first I thought it was my “Beach” tree, which in the spring, smells exactly like the beach (wind, surf, suntan oil). It started out as a shrub which Damien decided to mow around, and in its first season it grew 15 feet. The next year, another 10 feet or more. And it continues to spread, shooting up babies all around the base; there are now 4 or 5 of them. It seems to be a birch of some kind, according to its bark, but I’ve never been able to positively identify it. And I’ve never noticed the scent after spring.

Then I thought maybe it was the lavender I planted this spring, in a bed outside my living room window. Wrong again.

Today, I decided to pull up some gnarly weeds growing along the curb all around my property line. They seem to thrive in the cracks of the concrete, right on the edge where I can’t hit it with the lawnmower. Yum, the smell is all over my now-green hands and I can’t even bring myself to wash my hands, they smell so good. I can’t imagine what it is, but I think I will turn it into potpourri.

And it got me thinking about smells. My favorites:

· Composted horse manure. Many years ago, I drove to the countryside and loaded some up in buckets for my garden, for FREE, and decided I need to keep a bucket in my vehicle at all times. (I didn’t, of course, but wow, what a good, earthy smell!)

· Dill, fresh, in my car as an air freshener. (Ditto, above, but what an idea!)

· Herbs, of all kinds. I have a large oatmeal canister filled with dried basil from my first or second garden years ago and it still smells yummy. Every once in awhile I just open it up and take a big, deep whiff.

· Garlic. Onions. When I chop either one (and I do often), I postpone washing my hands for hours, until I’ve inhaled every last note of aroma.

· Burnt food on the grill. Especially chicken with the skin on. As long as I don’t think about what it is that I’m smelling or, later, eating.

· Burning wood/fire. Someday, I will have a fireplace. For now, a firepit, even better in many ways.